


A Grey Winter's Bloom

by PrinceOfOneSingleDomain



Series: Flowers of a Future Ooo [3]
Category: Adventure Time
Genre: 1000+ Ooo, Bubbline, Continuation, F/F, Flashbacks, Future Fic, Gen, Immortality, Majority of the story takes place 20 years after the finale, Marceline-centric, Medical Procedures, Memories, Mild Blood, Moving On, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16269566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceOfOneSingleDomain/pseuds/PrinceOfOneSingleDomain
Summary: How did Marceline get her wrinkles and grey hair? What happened to Simon? A night that starts as an attempted romantic evening for her and Bonnie ends up being more than Marceline ever bargained for.In BMO's house of many memories, Marceline finds Simon's glasses lying on a shelf. They remind her of a time that seems too long past to be real, but too personal to be far from her heart. Shermy, Beth and the others listen to her recount the first time she'd noticed Simon was growing old, and that there was nothing she could do to stop it.Takes place 1000 years after the events of the finale, but flashes back to only 20 years after.





	1. Through the Spectacles

**Author's Note:**

> And another one! This one takes a look at some of the smaller developments that happened just after the finale, with a long hard look at Marceline and Simon - one immortal, one not. I hope you enjoy this one - there's still a couple chapters to come, and it's different from either two of the previous ones. 
> 
> Then again, isn't one of the best things about Adventure Time how so many of the episodes felt distinct and different? 
> 
> I'd love to read all of your comments and hear your thoughts.

Marceline closed the door behind her, leaving the evening air outside. He straightened her black and grey hair out just enough to get the wind's traces out of it, and nodded at BMO. He told her that Peppermint Butler was there too, chilling on BMO’s balcony. He went to make another glass of tea immediately, his reserves slowly being put to good use by all the visitors, and Marceline was left to make her own entertainment for a moment. She started looking through BMO’s collection of things, her arms wandering over an old sword, her original axe bass (before she’d upgraded the volume to go up to twelve) and an old book written by Simon. "A Chaotic Life". There was something right behind it, and she reached for it, feeling a familiar shape come to rest in her palm.

His glasses.

She brought them out on the balcony. Night had almost fallen, but she still wore her gloves and hid her face with the top of her collar just in case. Peppermint Butler was looking out into the distance, at the last rays of sunlight hitting the trees of Huntress Wizard's forest. A teacup was already in his hand, the steam rising up like a long, translucent snake. In his other was a card, red, with the name _Hunson_  written on it in bold, black letters on one side and a picture of the Nightosphere Gate on the other.

"I got this from the little cat fella, Shermy"; he said, turning slightly to face her. "Said one of your father's goons dropped it when trying to steal the Lich's hand, but it's not his handwriting. I think it's Hunson Junior, but..."

He noticed what Marceline was holding and whistled long note of surprise.

“Those are his glasses, aren’t they?”

Marceline nodded. And remembered.

***

Simon felt so light, trembling in her arms, his forehead still bloody from the fall. She tried to shake him awake, make him do anything, answer to her, open his eyes, but he just groaned and moved closer to her monster form, limply wrapping his arms around her. She felt the tears flow down, massive and amplified, staining his vest and his coat, but there was nothing else she could do but bring him to the candy hospital. She broke through the front door, ripping it from its hinged, transforming at the same time. Simon’s form grew just the tiniest bit heavier in her arms, and the blood from his forehead stained her black hair.

“Doc!”, Marceline yelled, hurrying past Nurse Poundcake standing by the reception. “Doctor Princess! Please!”

Doctor Princess ran up to her from behind, a gum cigarette in her hand.

“I was on break, what’s – oh Glob.”

“Please, do something, anything, I…”

“Sit down and wait. Nurse Poundcake, call Finn’s mother, tell her to send a helper. I’ll page Dr. Ice Cream.”

Doctor Princess picked up Simon, carrying him with some difficulty into a room whose door closed before Marceline’s eyes. She tried to open it. Locked. She knockend on the door, waiting for Doctor Princess to respond, but she was already so deep in her work she barely heard anything other than the insistent beep of the machines around her. Simon barely moved. 

“I…”

“Sit down in the waiting room!”, Doctor Princess shouted.

Marceline heard things move inside, machines roaring to life. She tried to open the door, but it was closed from the inside. There was a small window in its middle, and she chanced a look inside – and moved away immediately. No, she couldn’t look at him like this. With a sigh of defeat, she walked over to the waiting room, its window wide open to let the night sky in. It had been such a long night, Marceline thought. She sat down next to a candy person she didn’t take the time to recognize, just to not feel so alone again. A pink thought entered her mind. To think it had been mere hours ago.

The room had been dark except for the computer screen’s light illuminating Bonnie’s face, her hands tapping away at something Marceline hadn’t quite understood. She watched her girlfriend work from the bed, waiting for something to happen, for the mood to change. It was night outside, some birds having a loud argument about clouds, candy people and humans moving about beneath the castle’s windows. Everything was changing so suddenly, it felt almost alien. But then again, everything had changed once already, and it probably would in the future, too, so was change really all that new?

“So, uh…”, Marceline said, touching the tip of one of her fangs with her finger, “if you’re busy, I can just come back tomorrow or something.”

“It’s the buildings, Marceline”, Bonnie said, shooting Marceline a tired, but still warm glance from underneath a mountain of frayed hair. “The humans came and didn’t plan on bringing all the materials. Now some of them have gone back, but the ones who want to live here need buildings to live in.”

“Why can’t you guys just built more candy buildings?”

“Yeah, I mean, why a lot of things? It just – ugh. I wish we could. But they say candy buildings feel weird.”

“What? I’ve lived in one for, like, ten days, and I survived.”

“Hm.”

“Can I go talk to them, like some sort of candy ambassador?”

“Cherry Cream Soda is candy ambassador.”

Marceline sighed, managing to put so much drama into her forlorn expression Bonnie actually looked up from her screen and laughed.

“I’ll see if I can’t make two”, she said, “but now c’mere.”

“Oh? Am I suddenly prettier than your screen over there?”

“I prefer pale to green, you know that.”

Marceline floated over to Bonnie’s chair, taking a seat on her lap.

“Uff, heavy!”, Bonnie said.

“I’ve been eating well”, Marceline answered, “gotta keep these vampire juices flowin’.”

“Ah, is that so? Well, allow me to…”

They leaned in for a kiss at the same time, arms resting on each other’s shoulders and thighs, squeezing lightly when they felt the other leaning in further. It was all so familiar, warm and cozy like a winter afternoon spent in bed. Just when Marceline thought they would leave that godforsaken chair alone and leave, go somewhere, float through the night like they’d planned to, a shrill noise crushed her plans. Bonnie withdrew from the kiss and looked at her screen.

“Ugh, it’s Finn’s mom…’s digital presence? And their lead architect. I have to take this, Marcy.”

“Fine! Fine! You know what, I'm fine with this!"

Marceline floated upwards, murmuring to herself about ungratefulness and rejection. The call seemed to be getting louder, an incessant ringing coming from the middle of the room, filling it to the brim with its urgency. She couldn't stand it anymore.

“Wait. Marcy. Please.”

The noise fizzled out, the other side growing tired of waiting. Princess Bubblegum’s mobile lit up on her bedside table, the screen only displaying a large red exclamation mark.

“Don’t be mad at me. It’s crazytown right now. We’ll get this all settled once I decide on my second-in-command, then I can delegate some work and we can spend more time together, but please, just – I’ve already got so much on my plate.”

“And I’m that little bit that’s just too much, right?”

“You’re just gloating right now and you know it. I'm only choosing my number two so we can spend more time together. Don't hate me because it's going slowly.”

“… Yeah, I know.”

Marceline opened one of the windows, letting the cool night air into their room. The candy kingdom had grown so quickly - it had never reached quite as far it did now. All she saw now were more reasons Bonnie couldn't let go of her work for just an hour or two to be with her girlfriend. 

“I’ll be back", she said. 

“Are you mad?”

Marceline turned around. Bonnie looked genuinely distraught, almost ready to leap out of her chair despite being tired from not sleeping for at least three days, if the deep lines under her eyes were any indication.

“No”, Marceline said, “I… I know it’s not your fault. Just call me, alright?”

“I always do, to say goodnight.”

“That you do.”

Marceline took off, two large black wings growing quickly on her back. It felt good to experiment with her shapeshifting lately – she’d even managed to transform her hair into a hair-bat, but that hat turned sour much too quickly to be of any use in the future.

Returning home, she heard some noise coming from the TV – Simon must have been watching some old DVDs again. He didn’t go out much anymore, the distances he needed to travel to get anywhere proving a bit long for his aging body. Marceline felt a warmth that wasn’t too far removed from the one she felt with Bonnie fill her bones – she’d waited a thousand years to be able to just come home to him, find him sitting on a couch and join him watching an old “Cheers” disc they’d found in an underground bunker. Bonnie and her had found one on the first of their too few vacations together, and he’d been overjoyed to receive it, even losing his composure for a second, hugging Bonnie.

Marceline smiled at the memory. She grabbed a can of soda out of her fridge, cracked it open and drank the red out of it.

“Yo, Simon, I’m back”, she said, loud enough so he’d be able to hear over the TV. “You want something to drink or like a snack or something? I got… cherries, an apple, a couple of red candles. I can go for a run if you want some wine or something. Oh wait, I got some, it’s chill.”

She entered the living room, wine bottle in her hand.

“Remember where I put the corkscrew? Simon?”

He wasn’t there. The TV was still on, low volume, like he’d just meant to watch it before dozing off. His favourite cushion was exactly where he always liked it to be. Marceline’s eye wandered further. Light was coming from the bathroom.

“Simon? You okay in there?”

Groaning. Pain. Simon.

She ran into the bathroom, seeing blood on the edge of her sink and Simon lying on the floor, trying to stand up but falling down again, a deep red spot forming on his grey hair. Blood. She held his head upright, trying to see how severe the damage was, but whenever she even got close to the spot with her fingers, the man in her arms started wincing in pain. There was no way she'd do this. She picked him up, carried him to the door and transformed into her huge monster-form to fly faster. The stars were mere blurs to her on the way.

The memory was still all-too present now, standing on BMO’s balcony, a good 980 years later, her grey-black hair swaying in the breeze. She held his glasses in her hands, feeling how fragile they were after all those centuries, but the glass still held its shape and was even somewhat clean – BMO must be taking good care of them. It hadn’t been wrong to give them to him when she couldn’t keep them anymore.

“He looked”, Marceline started, coughed, collected herself again and began anew, “he looked bad. There was blood on my sink and a bloody bruise on his forehead. I didn’t know what to do, so I just brought him to the hospital. Flew as fast as I could. Kept shaking him, he didn’t wake up. I… I was…”

“Yeah. Of course. If something happened to PB, I’d probs go mad, too.”

“Same here.”

Marceline’s hand clenched around the red cherry tea BMO had made just for her. She remembered so much so well, it almost felt like a curse. How many lifetimes had she lived now? Thirty? The memories kept floating through her head, ramming into the walls, ricocheting off her thoughts and fears.

“Oh, I remember. I saw you in the waiting room”, Peppermint Butler said. How much did he remember? She’d never asked him, never taken the time to talk about how it felt to still be left.

“Right, you were there too, weren’t you?”

“You still had your black hair then.”

“And my beautiful youth.” Marceline traced the outlines of her wrinkles, small and only located around her eyes with a hint around her lips. After a good thousand years, it would have felt weird to return to a body without them, as if the other one had belonged to a different person.

A loud knock on the door. BMO shuffling inside. Voices. Shermy and Beth. Bonnie, too. They must’ve met on the way, Bonnie was taking Beth into the ruins during the day, when Marceline couldn’t go.

“Peps, if you’re here, I have another demon-card from the Nightosphere!”, Shermy yelled.

“Another time?”, Marceline said, nodding her head in Shermy’s general direction, who was still hidden somewhere behind a mountain of BMO’s mementos.

"Well", Peps said, "it's a story they all should hear. The little one especially, he's still so hasty and young. Just like Finn. But no pressure."

Peppermint Butler leaned against the balcony's railing one last time before moving inside. His new black outfit almost made him disappear into the darkness. 

“Yeah”, Marceline said to nobody in particular. 

The wind moved her hair. She took a couple of strands, every other one grey, then black, then grey again, twisting the until they seemed to lose shape, melding into each other.

“It feels good to remember. Sometimes.”

Sometimes, when Bonnie was off doing something on her own and Marceline remained in one of their many shelters, idly playing something on her bass, memories seemed to be all she had left, two thousand years of nothings and anythings. Now, with his glasses in hand and a room of people to listen, they were everything.

The sun would rise before she finished her story.


	2. No Comfort in the Waiting Room

The air in the gingerbread waiting room was stuffy, nobody bothering to open a window. There wasn’t anyone around except for the former Root Beer Guy, now known as Dirt Beer Guy, and he probably didn’t even need to breathe. Marceline had imagined it would be much fuller, what with some of the accidents happening on the construction sites. Then again, the humans probably didn’t trust candy medicine all that much.

Peppermint Butler walked through the waiting area to the main entrance, his tools for exorcism and spiritual healing firmly clasped under his arm. He nodded at Marceline. She nodded back. Peps didn’t look too good – ever since Bonnie had decided he was entirely too skilled to just spend all his time being her butler, he’d taken up a small practice for “Magica and the D. Arts”, but whenever she saw him, it looked like he was just about to start crying.

“Never”, he said, the last rays light behind Huntress Wizard’s giant forest finally fading outside, long shadows cast on BMO’s house just turning into darkness.

Marceline shrugged. She failed to resist a grin spreading across her face and continued once Shermy’s laughter (and Pepper’s protests) had died down.

Dirt Beer Guy, formerly known as Root Beer Guy, was sitting in one of the corners reading a comic book, and Marceline sat down next to him, not even asking if she could read along, just moving her head ever so slightly when she was ready for him to turn the page. He obliged, a quiet agreement made to keep company and pass the time.

“Wait a second”, Marceline said when Dirt Beer Guy turned the page to reveal the title of another story, “isn’t that you?”

Dirt Beer Guy chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it is. Though I look more dashing here than usual.”

It portrayed him holding a flashlight and wading through the swamp, a banana guard with an impressive moustache close behind him. They were both wearing fedoras and trenchcoats.

“Why the coats though?”, Marceline asked, a slight smile spreading across her face despite it all, despite Simon being just a couple of rooms further, waiting for something just as much as she was. He didn’t just fall, that was impossible. If anything, he was probably thinking how to explain it best to her, and she could just imagine him talking to Doctor Princess and Minerva. If he’d woken up, of course.

The smile disappeared.

“Well, the Banana Guard who drew this really likes drawing different fabrics”, Dirt Beer Guy answered, “last time, we got…”

Cherry Cream Soda, the dark red of her face having grown even deeper with time though her bubbles were now gone, walked into the waiting room, Doctor Princess by her side, quietly talking to her. The Doctor – now officially so and long since residing in the uppermost floor of the hospital – had longer Pigtails than Marceline remembered the last time she’d seen her but looked no different other than that.

“Everything’s in order, just make sure you get more sleep”, she said, giving the small soda a worried pat on the back. “Princess Bubblegum’s working us all to death right now, but tell her if you’re not feeling well, alright? Health above all.”

Cherry cream soda nodded, the fluid inside of her glass moving slightly. Dirt Beer guy gave Marceline a nod of goodbye, too his wife’s hand and left without another word. Doctor Princess adjusted her glasses, moved a stray hair out of her face and seemed to notice Marceline for the first time.

“Marceline.”

“How is he?”

“The human assistant interface or whatever is in there right now, I need a breather.”

Doctor Princess sighed deeply and let herself fall into the seat next to Marceline’s, fanning air toward her face. “It’s insane. Everyone’s getting hurt or something. Finn was in here with Huntress Wizard and Sweet P. yesterday, they were teaching him something about hand-to-hand or Glob knows what, and you better believe Finn’s arm was broken in like, three places.”

“Did you fix him?”

“Is GOLB Simon’s girlfriend?”

“Well, uh… Technically?” Marceline shrugged. There was no way to help it, it didn’t get any less weird the more she thought about it. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“And that’s how I fixed him. _Technically_. Because he’s gonna go break something again. And… there’s something else.”

Doctor Princess looked down at her hands, at the tired fingers and small cuts she’d received while using scissors or a scalpel or a knife to even out the cut of a pie slice candy person’s edges.

“They’re all growing older, aren’t they?”, she said.

“Yeah. How’s Simon? Do you… do you know what’s wrong with him? I mean, I know he just fell, but maybe – his h-heart? Or did he black out? Is he eating enough?”

“He’s alright, at least for now”, Doctor Princess said, but she didn’t look at Marceline. “But we ran some tests.”

“Oh.”

“We always do.”

“Yeah.”

“And it’s weird.”

“What is?”

“We don’t know yet. It’ll…”

The beeper strapped to her thigh went off. Marceline felt a mounting panic rise in her stomach. No. Not so suddenly – she’d barely gotten him back, it couldn’t be.

“Okay”, Doctor Princess said, “we’ll all be right back, I guess. Hoo boy.”

“What? What’s _hoo boy?_ What does _hoo_ _boy_ mean, Doctor Princess? What do you mean with _there’s something else?_ What’s weird?”

“Let go of me, Marceline.”

Marceline released the fabric she hadn’t even realised she’d grabbed, feeling her fingers clench around themselves instead.

“Marceline, he’s alright. But there’s something we need to tell him, and he might not want to tell you, so be careful.” Doctor Princess walked away, but not without turning to face Marceline one last time. “He’s old and fragile. You can’t change that.”

Marceline stood there, unmoving, until Simon shook her out her trance. There was a bandage on his head and a band-aid right above his eye, and he was holding an ice pack that had seen better, colder times. Doctor Princess and Minerva were behind him, the former looking to the side, the latter wringing her hands, a slight smile still on her robotic face.

“Are you the real one?”, Marcy asked.

“There are no real ones”, Minerva said, “but yes, this is the mainframe speaking.”

“What’s… What’s up with Simon?”

“Marcy, let’s go”, Simon said, his voice sounding like it had been worn too long and left to collect dust. “Let’s just go home, cozy up and watch a movie or something. I’m beat. Hate hospitals.”

“Simon! I… I need to know what happened.”

“I just fell, is all. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Marceline stared. “Nothing out of the ordinary? You – are you kidding me?“

She took a step back.

“You… you can’t just fall like that. You could’ve – no. Doctor Princess told me something was up. I need to know what it is, whether you like it or not.”

“Our expert might shed some light on this”, Minerva said, pulling out a small tablet she held up to Marceline’s face. It took her a moment to recognize the green person waving at her without his yellow hat and robes and that junk-eating grin on his face. Magic Man. No, King Man now, king of Mars.

“Howdy-hoo, buckaroo!”, he said. “We took a good look at Petrikov's blood under the microscope, and took a digital sample for to atom-scope here on Mars on top of that. It's bazonkers. Some of the molecules have eyes and move around like it's nobody's business. Simon’s got chaos in his blood.”

Shermy sucked in his breath.

“What do you mean, chaos?”

Marceline shrugged. She still held the spectacles, turning them over in her hand. Weird how something he hadn’t worn for most of the time she’d known him ultimately reminded her more of him than the crown ever could have.

“Pure chaos”, she said, “and they didn’t know why. Though King Man speculated.”

She breathed in deeply. Beth took another cup of tea, making sure not to make any noise she could avoid. Princess Bubblegum crossed her legs, dangling one of her pink boots in the air.

“Marcy”, she said, “you don’t have to keep talking if you don’t want to.”

“I haven’t talked about this since Finn…”, Marceline said, but caught herself, not sure whether it was the right time to drudge up yet another memory. Finn was a whole other can of worms.

“Since Finn what?”, Shermy asked, already on his feet. “What?”

“Another time”, BMO said, shaking his head. “You are not ready.”

“Aww, you guys always say that.” Shermy pouted.

He reminded him so much of her. Peppermint Butler had said something about Finn’s soul once she couldn’t quite remember – she’d have to ask him the next time they’d see each other outside of story time. Which might not be soon, all things considered. The past was growing more and more translucent, with her hearing Simon's steps behind her, the buzz of the hospital's waiting room entering inside BMO's home like an old friend trying to visit. The weight of Simon’s glasses seemed to grow with every minute she was holding them.


	3. Simon and Marcy

At home, Simon didn’t want to talk – not about the chaos, about Betty, about the fall or even whether he was still in pain. He took to his study, opened a bunch of books about ancient magic without reading a single line and ultimately sat down on his bed, where Marceline found him, a small tray of food in her hand.

“So that’s what we’re doing now, huh”, he said. “Remember when I fed _you_? That time you couldn’t even talk? You had a fever. I was so scared.”

Marceline set down the tray – only red foods – on his table, far away from any books the cherry juice might spill on.

“That was a thousand years ago”, Marceline said. “But yeah, I remember.”

“Time”, Simon said, “it’s always time, isn’t it?”

“Come on Simon, it was one little fall, you shouldn’t…”

“It was more than that. You know why I fell?”

She shook her head no. Standing the doorway, miles away from him, the distance seemingly insurmountable – it felt wrong on every level. If only she had longer arms, she would extend them as far as they could reach, beyond time and into the past again, and hold his hand through this, like he had for her many times before. She remembered one of the many nights she got a cold because he used the crown, remembered him wrapping his lanky arms around her small body and pressing her closer in their little tent so she would stop shaking, all the while saying sorry over and over again.

She looked away. She was about to lose it again.

“Was the chaos acting up? You lost control of your body?”

“It doesn’t act up, it’s just there. I looked at myself in the mirror”, he said, “see.”

He held up one of the strands that had grown long, so light grey it was almost white. Marceline touched her own hair without thinking – still black like the nights she lived in, still black after all those years.

“It’s like the Ice King’s”, Simon said, “and, even worse, I’m getting old.  I actually thought you were there when you were at Bonnie’s, even put in the DVD and called your name. When you didn’t answer, I remembered, went to the bath room, just to wash my face, get some cold water in there. I guess I just got a little scared, like old people do.”

“Simon, you’re not old!”

Marceline finally closed the distance between them with a couple of shaky steps and sat down next to him, tentatively reaching out and touching his shoulder. He touched her arm in turn. It felt warm like it hadn’t for all the time when he had been the Ice King. Marceline imagined losing it again. She couldn’t.

“You’ll be fine, we’ll get you fixed up in no-time, and I bet Bonnie’s got a serum or a potion or she’ll make one to help you, and… I can carry you. I can just fly you everywhere for a while, until we figure it out. I… I can’t turn you, but maybe we can figure out a way to transfer some part of my powers, and…”

Years later she would think that she shouldn’t have said a single word about helping him. This man, who had carried her through burning buildings and crumbling ruins. He wouldn’t listen to something that sounded remotely like help, and she should’ve known.

“You can’t know that”, Bonnie said, “it really was worth a try. You never dealt with him like this.”

Bonne hugged her from behind while Marceline was still holding Simon’s shoulder, trying to read even the least bit of something she could latch on to in his eyes. As soon as he brushed her off, the future phantom disappeared, and all that was left in Marceline’s home were two people trying to talk about something too large for either of them.

“I don’t want to be helped, Marcy.”

“What?”

“I’ve known about the chaos in my blood for a long time now, Marcy. So did King Man. When the dreams started, I went to him – he’s an expert, after all. We took a sample of my blood two years ago. It was clear. I knew. I told him to keep it a secret, but I guess this was as long as he could keep it.”

He shrugged.

“It feels much more plesant than when the crown took my sanity, to be honest. And… you know… maybe this is for the better.”

Simon turned to look at her, and she finally let herself notice how he’d changed. Wrinkles. Hair all greyed out, eyes just a bit glassier than they used to be. His clothes seemed baggier, as if he’d lost a lot of weight. She hadn’t changed at all. If not for his age, this scene could have played anywhere in the past 900 years, and nobody watching could’ve told she wasn’t the same girl from back then anymore.

“Simon”, she said, still shaking her head, making the length of her black hair fly around her, “you can’t… Please.”

“What if she wants to see me again?”, Simon said. “I- I know it’s been a long time, and that I should be over this, but… Marcy. She’s the love of my life. Surely you understand. If she wants me to come back to her, because who else, who else in this world could be doing this, how could I refuse?”

He shook his head.

“My Betty. Loyal to a fault.”

A warm bubblegum thought grew and popped in Marceline’s mind.

“I get it, I really do. But Simon – I can’t just…”

“You’re still young.”

“I’m just as old as you are.”

“But look at yourself. You’re not old. You shouldn’t spend your time with someone like me. I mean, come on. I know I still got it, but I haven’t known what ‘it’ is for a good hundred years or so.”

“Simon!”, she said, snorting despite herself.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, Marcy. You gotta go live with your GF. Hang with Finn and Huntress Wizard and Jake. I’ll be fine – Abracadaniel comes to visit, Life Giving Magus too. We play cards with the other guys. I’ll be alright. Don’t subject yourself to this.”

Marceline felt the words nagging at her, but it felt so strange talking to this old Simon that they felt ever-so-narrowly out of reach, as if she were a tree that still had to grow into them. Simon had never been old. He’d been Simon, then the Ice King, then Simon again. What was happening? Marceline felt something that almost reminded her of a quickening heartbeat rush through her blood.

“Please, Marcy”, Simon said, “I don’t want you to watch what happens.”

A fit of coughs shook him to the core, Marceline trying her best to support him so he wouldn’t fall off the bed.

“Let me take care of you”, she said, “like you took care of me. Please. Don’t make me leave.”

He shook his head.

“I’ll just ask Finn’s mom to send me one of her robots. They make for great conversation, as you know.”

“As if.”

“Marcy, that’s my stance.”

“You can’t throw me out of my own home!”

“Well, can’t blame an old love-struck fool for trying, right?”

“Simon.”

He turned away. With a deep sigh, he started unbuttoning his vest, loosened the top of his shirt and showed Marceline the skin that covered his heart. There was a small red hand print exactly above where its chambers should be. Marceline rubbed at it – it didn’t go away.

Had he been keeping this a secret? For how long?

“But I don’t understand”, she said, “I mean, what did she wish for? When she had the crown inside GOLB?”

“I don’t know”, Simon said. Then he added, with a finality that made Marceline shiver, “I might just find out soon. I have these dreams, Marcy. I have them all the time – it’s always that day she… merged with GOLB. And now, she’s extending her hand to me. Can you believe it? We might still be together. I really want to see her again, no matter what it takes.”

Another fit of coughs. Marceline stood up, slowly. She felt her arms might evaporate when they touched him, or, even worse, that she might do something to further upset him, to hurt him even more in this already fragile state. But wasn’t this exactly the type of thought she shouldn’t be having? The rest of the house was a blur. She took off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this one, as well! It's really interesting to think how Simon, himself immortal for the longest time, might react to growing old while Marceline doesn't. 
> 
> I'd love to hear all of your thoughts again - your comments absolutely make my mood go up every time, even if there's a part you found you didn't enjoy too much.


	4. Outlandos of Time

She left, tears burning hot in her eyes. With a large umbrella pointed firmly at the sun, she travelled the distance to Princess Bubblegum’s castle quicker than she ever had before. Seeing the monarch in her room, talking to a distraught Peppermint Butler, no doubt explaining yet again that he was his own candy now, she wondered whether she should leave again – another place where things were moving while she was standing still. She’d gotten back with Bonnie, but Glob only knew how long she would stay this time. And she’d been with Bonnie before. Was this new? Was it new enough?

“Please, Princess. You must understand how much of an asset to you I am. Yes, granted, I neglected my butlery duties for the pursuit of the dark arts - you must admit, they are tempting - but I promise that this punishment is unnecessary. I... I don't know what to do with all my time, Princess!”

“You might end up being even more of an asset if you take that time to, uh, _find yourself_. Peps.”

“So I’m finding myself to serve you better? Understood! Of course. How did I not see this before?”

“No, Peps, that’s not it, I mean… Wait.”

A knock on glass ripped Marceline’s thoughts away.

“Marcy”, Bonnie said, already opening the window, “what are you doing out there?”

“Just floatin’ around, I guess.”

“What’s up? Come in. I was just telling Peps here that he can stay _if he wants to._ ”

Peppermint Butler looked taken aback.

“This is a dire turn of events for Peppermint Butler”, he said, “but… I do have my own business to attend to. I might just find some use for the time I have now. My business is booming, after all. You two, see you.”

With that, he walked out, round candy shoulders still slumped.

“Finally”, Bonnie said, “if he doesn’t come back for at least a week, I’ll make him my number two. Then we can finally go travel some more. He’s got the smarts, y’know, but I can’t just have him rely on my orders all the time.”

“Doesn’t he have that dark magic thing going on?”

“Exactly. He needs to realise his worth. And junk. Finn said it better when he explained it to me. Wonder how Sweet P’s training’s going, but of course I don’t have enough _time_ to visit!”

Bonnie fell into her spinning chair, the screen before her displaying a number of messages, all flashing in different colours. _You have an appointment with Minerva in ten minutes. Rattleballs requests more founds for the guards. Cherry Cream Soda requesting more time off. Visit to Neddie with Aunt Molly in two hours. Date with Marceline in 22 hours._

So many items on the list, so many important things Bonnie needed to keep track of. Marceline didn’t blame her for being absent, lost in her mind. Especially not now. Though seeing herself merely at the end of a long list of other things made her feel even smaller, like there was even less she could do to help Simon.

“What can I do for you, Marcy? I got ten minutes.”

“It’s Simon.”

“Oh. Oh dear. I got a mail from Doctor Princess – I… I should’ve called, I’m sorry.”

“No it’s – it’s okay. He just – I guess he doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

Bonnie perked up a perfect pink eyebrow.

“What the junk happened?”

“He just got older. Well, he fell before that, but I guess you already know that, and now there’s like chaos in his blood – Betty. GOLBetty. And I just, I know I shouldn’t force him to do anything, so I just want to stay by his side or somejunk, but he says I shouldn’t spend time around him because I’m still young, and have my life ahead of me and crap.”

“But you’re old as gunk. You’re older than I am, and I’m older than all of the candy people. Even the ones I made to look old.”

“But I don’t look it, do I?”

Marceline burrowed her hands into her hair. She sat down on the floor. Bonnie clapped her hands, and the drawers closed automatically, covering the room in a hazy darkness that still let traces of the sun’s warmth through. Marceline stretched out with a sigh, looking at the tall ceiling, a single chandelier hanging high above Bonnie’s bed. There was something she could do, a thing at the back of her mind trying to come to its fore, but she still couldn't quite put her finger on it.

“I’ve been around for so long”, she said, “I’m tired. I’m tired of losing people. First my mom, then Simon, now Simon _again?_ And here I am, good as new.”

She looked at her hand. Grey. And the same. Always the same.

Like her mother had once told her, all things essentially stay the same through all their different interations, but that doesn't mean they can't change in a significant way, maybe even in a way you might not be able to see. But with Simon so obviously aging, racing towards an uncertain future she didn't even want to think about, that wasn't good enough.

“I don’t understand. It’s the vampire blood, isn’t it? I’ll stay like this forever, as long as there is red on this place, and Simon will die. Finn will die. Jake will… Will he? I don’t know, but I bet I’ll find out.”

“Marceline. We can figure this out together. But... i think there might not be all that much you can do here." Princess Bubblegum pulled up a window on her screen. "I looked at the blood sample. It's not dangerous, it's not malignant or anything of the sort, but it might do its bizz at any point, and we won't know how to react. I really don't want to make you feel bad, but I get where he's coming from. If this were happening to me, I wouldn't want you to be near when it did, either." "Would you want to be next to me? By my side, Bonnie? If the same thing happened to me." Bonnie sighed. "Of course." They shared a smile, and it seemed infinite. "Have you tried just asking him if there's something you can do?" 

“Of course! What do you think? But he won’t let me. He won’t even come to you, even though I’m sure you could at least do _something._ Why does this gotta happen now?”

Memories clouded her vision in both past and present, an showreel of moments that she had now kept replaying for a good two thousand years. An old man with white hair giving a girl a stuffed toy. Fighting off bandits. Scavenging for food. Carrying her through the city when she had a cold. Singing songs for her from behind an old TV. Telling her her mom's in heaven, where she's fine and the monsters they saw in town today can't hurt them. Kissing her forehead. Holding her hand. Hiding his tears to cry when she slept.

“Simon did all that?”, Shermy asked.

He chewed his food so slowly that it barely made a sound. What if he missed a single word of the story?

Marceline nodded.

“He did.”

“He sounds like a great guy”, Beth said. “I think the movie Shermy and I watched was about him. He went a bit bananas because of a crown, right?”

“There’s a movie? About Simon?”, Peppermint Butler asked, incredulous. “Well, I suppose we're all legends now, which is exactly as it should be. What’s next, though? My fight to the death against Death on Death Mountain?”

“I didn’t like that one”, Shermy said, “too much sappy romance.”

Peppermint Butler shrugged. So they’d added a love story. He had a bigger legacy in the nightmares of every demon who had ever left the Nightosphere than any movie could give him, so why worry? The people of Ooo now didn’t know him, at least not most of them – he kept in contact with Gibbon sparingly since the old man was nearing another diamond jubilee as ruler of the Pup Kingdom himself, but other than that, he didn’t need to. He didn’t eat anymore, unless for pleasure – a side effect of exposing himself to dark magic for the better part of a millennium. A pleasant one, at that.

“What happened next?”, Beth asked Marceline. “Did Bonnie give you the treatment?”

Marceline felt the wrinkles around her eyes, then straightened an unruly part of her grey-black hair. She nodded. 

“What treatment?”, Shermy asked.

The Vampire Queen laughed.

“That’s what she asked me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's the last one for a little while - see you all on Friday! We're getting to the "transformation" next. 
> 
> As always, I hope you're enjoying the story. I'm so grateful for all your nice comments that pick up on so many things I put into the story - you guys are an awesome audience to have and I look forward to meeting you here again and again.


	5. The Procedure

“Bonnie”, Marceline said, her eyes steadfast, “give me the procedure.”

“We’ve got about five different things we call _the procedure_ and I don’t have time for four of them”, Bonnie answered. “Though we can get the fifth one started quick if you want to.”

Marceline shook her head.

“You wanted to see how far my shapeshifting could go, right? I want you to make me… I want you to make me older.”

Princess Bubblegum’s expression fell so quickly it must’ve hit something on the way down.

"But why?", she asked. "You're perfect the way you are. Do you want to get, like, an older girlfriend look or something?"

"It's for Simon."

Princess Bubblegum took a second to think it over, turning the sentence every which way in her mind. Then, she nodded, her eyes fixed on Marceline.

"You want to make him see you're more alike than he thinks."

"Maybe... Maybe if I..." Marceline shook her head. "If I can show him how I feel inside on the outside, he'll understand. We've been through so much together. It's not fair he's the only one to to look the part."

“Gimme a sec.”

She swirled around in her chair until it was facing the screen perfectly. With a deft, rehearsed hand motion, she pulled up three smaller windows on it and pressed a button that looked like Marceline’s bass guitar.

“Cancel all my appointments today except for Neddie. Send Minerva a message – say it’s family businatch”, she said. The screen seemed to move slightly as if to nod, and every window except for one disappeared. Bonnie turned around, her expression altogether more gleeful, if still a bit wary.

“We’ve got two hours now! Wanna get started?”

“Just like that?”

“Don’t you know I’m always prepared?”

“You bet I do.”

It had seemed like such a good idea – help Simon stand this through, show him that time hadn’t passed her by, either. But now, standing in front of a machine that looked just like the one that had once removed her vampiric essence, Marceline felt a cold shiver run down her spine. What if it went wrong? What if he would have to bury her before he died, making all of this just infinitely worse?

“It won’t touch your vampiric essence or your demonic parts, at least not really”, Bonnie said. "What we'll do is tap into Hierophant's powers. He regulates your shapeshifting, right? We won't touch anything else. What I'll try to do is work out your powers in a very concentrated way - it'll basically alter your make-up forever, and you shouldn't really feel too different inside after it, but who knows? Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, I am. I have to. It just feels important somehow."

"Then let's start."

Marceline had no idea when she’d managed to change into a lab coat and large green glasses – she supposed it was just one of those things that would always keep surprising her about Princess Bubblegum, a light of daily newness in the infinite boredom of immortality. Though, Ooo considered, she didn’t remember a time when she’d ever been bored for long – all those people who had warned her about immortality had been wrong. You just needed kick-butt friends.

Kick-butt friends who were slowly closing a lid on top of you, leaving you in a small tunnel of light that awakened all-too recent memories of soul-searching.

“Bonnie, wait!”

“What’s up?”

The lid was open immediately. No hesitation. Marceline was glad it that it had always been and always would be Bonnie.

“I’m… I’m a bit scared. What if it goes wrong? What if we have to fight the old gang again?”

“Come on. Who’re you talking to? I perfected the method after we extracted your vampiric essence. It’s been twenty years. I’ve been busy, trust me.”

A little too busy at times, Marceline thought. Bonnie's face above her was a comfort she would have never done without, though.

“Yes, but… What if I get all wrinkly?”

“Well… wait.”

Bonnie returned with a helmet that was connected, through a series of pink tubes, to a machine that itself fed an entire web of cables right into the solarium-like thingamajig Marceline was resting on.

“Wear this.”

“What’ll it do?”

“It’ll make sure you get just as old as you feel, and not one day older.”

The contraption felt heavy in Marceline's arms, a small clasp attached to it that she put around her chin to keep it in place. It covered her eyes, but left her ears free enough to talk. The darkness felt oddly familiar - if she closed her eyes really tightly, she could almost make out stars in the nothing.

“Why… why did you make something like this?”

“Mind-reading. It was supposed to help me protect the Kingdom. Who knows, maybe there’s another Gumbald hiding in plain sight, you know? Didn’t work though. Only read feelings. Will need to optimize.”

“Don’t grow too megalomaniacal, dear.”

“Me? Never, darling. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be. Do I have to do anything specific?”

“Just… just stay with me, here. Don’t worry. Make a fist with your right hand, and keep your left hand open. Oh, and… try to think about everything, and never stop thinking, because bad stuff happens if you do.”

“Wha-“

It was on. The machine's circuits roared into existence, then slowed down to a pleasant hum as she heard Bonnie type incessantly behind her. The darkness before her parted into grey, and soon, colours entered her field of vision. 

Memories raced down Marceline’s mind in a never-ending cascade. There was her mom, grabbing her, carrying her through a slowly crumbling city-scape, driving her car, getting them as far away from the radiation as they could. There was her father, dropping by for a small visit, eating her mother’s cooking and leaving nothing but more sadness in his wake. And Simon. Simon Petrikov, who had brought ice to the desert. The weird old man who sat in her mother’s small kitchen. The man who helped Marceline move past it when her mom didn’t wake up. Simon, who held her crying face, wiped her tears with his beard and sang her a song that went “Thank you for being a friend” to get her to sleep, because she was “his little golden girl”. Her eyes felt wet for a moment, the memory too strong to keep it inside. When she thought of those times, no matter if it was a day after, or a thousand years, or two thousand years, the memories seemed to want to leak into the present somehow, be it by song or by tears. She brought a hand up under Bonnie's mind helmet and wiped them away.

Marceline felt her body shrink ever-so-slightly. Was it working? 

Another memory – him in his bedroom, grey, old, coughing, wincing in pain, telling her to leave him behind. His body aged. His look defeated. Old.

Dying.

Marceline felt an odd burning sensation around her eyes and mouth. Someone seemed to be softly pulling on her hair as well, even though she cold still hear Bonnie type in the back and nobody else was in the room.

The machine turned off with a whimper, the lid opening all on its own. Bonnie took off the helmet and looked down at Marceline.

“Oh, my poor baby.”

She hugged her until the tears stopped. Wiped them from beneath her eyes. Didn’t wince when Marceline buried her fingernails in her back. Held her until her body stopped shaking.

“Guess I’m a bit of a crybaby after all”, Marceline said a moment later, still hugging Bonnie, “though you have to promise not to tell a living soul about this.”

“I can tell the undead though, right?”

“Yuck, no! They’ll stop respecting me if you do. I need that validation.”

They chuckled, both moving just the tiniest bit away from each other to see their eyes. Bonnie looked Marceline up and down.

“Can’t say I don’t like it.”

“What?”

“Your… your new look.”

“ _What?_ Already? I barely felt anything!”

“Like I said, I optimised the bejeezus out of this thing. Though it’ll probably need to recover for at least another hundred years or so.”

“Can I… can I take a look?”

“You can’t see yourself in a mirror, remember?”

“Yeah, but – can’t you take a picture of me or something? Or make a photorealistic drawing? Or – wait – make a clone of me, and then we kill it when it goes rogue.”

“Already did that last one, didn’t work out so well.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Marceline laughed. “Come on now”, she said then, “grab a camera or something.”

Bonnie returned with a small camera that looked a lot like something humans had used many centuries ago, albeit very, very pink. Marceline struck a pose, freezing in a motion of extreme air guitar playing.

The picture turned out well, but Marceline barely recognised herself at first. Her once so black hair now had streaks of grey running all over, looking like a grey bar code with very thin black lines spread across the length of her head, some spots more grey, some black, all hers now, all new. She zoomed in on her face, tracing the length of her jaw with her fingertips, moving up her lips and the new wrinkles around them, and the crow’s feet under her eyes. She reminded herself of her mother. The thought struck her as odd – her mother hadn’t been a half-demon vampire queen, after all. But when she had been with her, she hadn’t been any of those things either – just a little girl lying in her mother’s arms after a nightmare. Her mother had never gotten to look this old. Marceline almost dropped the camera. Glob, all that time passed, and she could still remember her mother’s fingers wrapped around her hair, gently stroking her head.

Bonnie cleared her throat. She took a glass of tea from BMO’s tray. Wait, what?

“If you – if you want to reverse it, we can probably try tomorrow, I bet I can whip something up.”

“No”, Marceline said, putting the camera down on the table, the memory regaining its shape again. “It’s good. I… thank you.”

“Hey.”

Bonnie touched Marceline’s hand, still resting on the table, the picture by its side, discarded. It, too, felt older, the fingers thinner and longer, the bones on the back more pronounced. Marceline looked now like she had for the briefest of moments when she had tried to dissuade Bonnie from starting the Gum War – wise and weary.

Shermy took a long look at her, and her hair especially. He had been sure she’d always looked like this. Marceline blinked for a moment, trying to separate him from the past, but it was futile – it felt as if he was there in the room with her and Bonnie, the third person to see her hair. Phantoms of Shermy, Pepbut and BMO appeared in the memory as well, circling around the past Marcelien trying to acquaint herself with her new hair. She kept touching it, bringing it to her face, her eyes - she even bit down on it to see if it would break. But no, the grey strands permeating her black hair were there to stay now. 

“How are you doing?”, Bonnie asked. “Does your body feel any different?”

Marceline stretched out her arms, her legs, did a jumping jack - no changes. She tried to transform her head without any issues at all. Though she noticed her fur was greyer as well, she didn’t feel the least bit weaker. Instead, it felt somehow like she was more at home in her body, like its changes hadn't made it strange or foreign, but instead more hers than it had been for a long time.

“I'm alright”, she said. "More than alright, actually."

"Am I glad to hear that, because you look _awesome_."

"That's nothing new, now is it?"

"You charmer." 

They kissed, and it felt right, just like it always did. Bonnie kept hugging Marceline after the kiss was over, stroking the grey of her hair. If only it could stay like this forever, she thought. She'd definitely try her best to make it happen. A small push brought Marceline before her again, and she traced the new outlines of her wrinkles with the very tips of her fingers, careful not to push too hard around her eyes.

"You really look great."

"Pf, I know. But. Thanks."

"Marceline was blushing all over", Bonnie said, sipping tea with a huge grin on her face. BMO turned to Marceline.

"You are still blushing now!", he said. 

Marceline quickly shook her head and laughed."

"This is just my natural colour sometimes, I have no control her head."

"That's the definition of blushing", BMO said.

Marceline shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess I love my girl, what else can I say? And... it just felt right to look that way, I don't know. So much had happened. I was a bit nervous it would seem weird, or like too much, but when I talked to Bonnie, it felt just right. That new me."

In some way, it had always been her, at least ever since the fight against GOLB and Gumbaldia – but then, it had turned into her new forever. And she had felt like her skin had finally closed around her. This was how she was supposed to look.

Bonnie toucher her arm.

“You were always fine just the way you were”, she said.

Beth nodded. “But you know, I think grey hair suits you just fine though.”

“So…”, Shermy said, his voice low and nervous, “is – uh – is Simon still around? Can we meet him like you guys?”

“Well”, Marceline said, rubbing the back of her head, “considering you guys might see some whacko stuff in the future, you might even get to meet him again, but, well, he’s not really here if you really get down to it.”

“Oh Glob”, Sherby said, “did you walk in and find that GOLB stabbed him with a kitchen knife?”

“Uh. No. That… that wasn’t what I found.”

Shermy looked at Marceline, eyes full of unconcealed expectation. Now came the slightly harder part. She still didn't know how much she'd talk about, how deeply into herself she'd burrow. There was too much, and then there was too little, and now, she felt the entire room waiting for her to continue, She sighed and settled in beside BMO. She looked at his glasses in her hand again, letting her fingers wander over the edges. They reflected the evening light coming through BMO’s windows and drawers in green, distorting it until it didn’t look anything like the real thing. They were like the crown in that way, only that they seemed to show something a bit closer to the truth. She put them on, like she had many times before she’d given them to BMO for safekeeping. The world looked smudged, Bonnie, Beth and Shermy appearing only in their primary colours, an abstract painting that slowly fell into itself.

She took a deep breath and kept talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's one more before the last chapter I'll upload tomorrow! Would love to hear your thoughts again - and see you all once the last chapter is uploaded. You guys absolutely make my day every time.


	6. All Of My Affections

She hesitated. Knocking on the door to her own house seemed wrong – it was hers, after all, and had been for a very long time. It might not be hers in the future, but as of now, there had been no other to claim it like Finn and Jake’s Tree Fort – which, she had to keep reminding herself, didn’t really exist anymore.

She knocked. Adjusted her hair. Waited. There were steps inside, too slow and quiet to be his, though she was absolutely certain they were, they had to be. In all those years of spending time with Bonnie, she hadn’t noticed them having grown so small, so different from when he had taken care of her and seemed too huge for her little arms to reach his head. When the wild mop of hair around his face had seemed to be so unkempt that it barely looked like anything, but still made her feel like nobody could hurt her when she pressed her face against it.

He opened the door. His hair was in a better shape than it had been back then, but it was still different from the Simon she remembered as the new, post-ice Simon. He had tied some of it back into a little bun, and the rest fell forward, enclosing his eyes with a grey and brown frame at the sides. He looked at her like he always had.

“Why did you even kno- my God.”

He looked her up and down, took a moment to look at her new wrinkles, her hair, the way his eternal Marceline had changed. She looked no different, her height and figure were still the same, but the fact she’d changed at all made him take a step back to remind himself he wasn’t dreaming. There she was, hair greying, look tired and worn. She looked like him.

“You like it?”, she asked.

She touched her hair in a way that was supposed to look nonchalant, but ended up being just as nervous as she felt. There was only two ways this could go – immediate acceptance and understanding or (angry? disappointed?) surprise.

Judging by Simon’s jaw hanging open, it was the latter, though which one exactly was yet to be determined. He leaned against one of the walls, taking off his glasses and putting them back on again.

“What is this?”, he asked. “How did you… Why?”

“I’ll let myself in”, Marceline said, walking past Simon into the living room. She sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her – sit down.

“What happened?”, Simon asked. “Is this some sort of curse?”

A curse. So that’s what he thought old age was, and Marceline couldn’t blame him. She’d seen humans growing old and small after they had been great and full of life. But still, if Simon had to deal with people looking at him like he was a relic, so would she. She was one just as much as he was, after all.

She felt a need to sit closer to him, to extend her hands and hug, to rub her cheeks against his like she had a child. But it wasn’t time yet. She still had to explain herself.

Her hands had folded themselves on top of each other in her lap without her even noticing. She cleared her throat – it was awfully itchy and tight. She almost felt like the first time she’d met Hunson, only she wasn’t scared of the same kind of rejection. Not anymore, at least.

“Nah. I did it myself. It just… it felt right. Get a new look, you know?”

Her hair hung into her field of view just slightly – she’d tied it back so she wouldn’t have to sit on it, and had actually made it a bit shorter with a limited use of shapeshifting. It now looked like she was just another older woman who had come home from a yard sale. She didn’t get yard sales when she was young, and neither did her mother. Simon told her all about them. She looked at him now.

He just stood and watched her, watched her look at him, at the TV, not saying anything, not really knowing what to say. The words had been there, before she’d knocked, but they always felt so small next to him, so meaningless compared to everything he’d told her way back when.

“Why?”, he asked. “Is it my fault?”

Marceline’s heart stopped.

“You… you wanted to change your appearance so I would feel better? Is that how… old I’ve become? Marcy, no – I… I understand, but… this, I didn’t expect this.”

“Simon”, she said. She let it hang in the air for a moment, trying to find just the right thing to put after – though the only right thing to do was to accept that it would never come, and to say something anyway.

“Marcy”, he started, “if you think this can change anything – you don’t understand what’s gonna happen soon. This fall was just the start, and I can feel it. Don’t waste your time on an old man like me. You’ve already done more than enough. I just need to know you’re happy, that’s all.”

“Happy?”, Marceline said. “You know what would make me happy? To take care of you. To stay with you.”

“Marcy, I can’t…”

“I’m not young either, Simon. I’m really not. Do you think I would’ve done all this just for you? Well, I would have, but… it felt right. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’m… I’m spent sometimes. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true. You know how many people I’ve already lost? You know what all of this feels like when you actually kept your mind for all those years? Watched your… watched you go insane? I liked the Ice King, at least towards the end I did, but it was never you. Don’t make me miss you more than I have to, Simon. Or longer.”

She looked up, her heart and throat feeling heavy and light all at once.

“I can’t take it. I know I’ll lose you. Let’s not beat around it, I know I will. And if you don’t want me to watch you grow even older, that’s okay. It really is.”

Though it wasn’t.

“But I need you to know that I want to do just that. I didn’t get to watch my mom grow old. My father never will. And here I am, wanting to understand what you’re going through, but – even if I look the way I feel now, I’m still the same inside, I can feel it. But so are you. Please let me have this time with you, Simon. I’ll – I’ll leave if you ask me to. But don’t.”

She didn’t remember the last time she’d talked this much. Her hair hung down, and she shook her head until it covered her face and she couldn’t see Simon stand there anymore, clueless and sad, his eyes frowning with every fibre of their being.

“Marceline, just… you know I love you.”

Marceline nodded, both in past and present. The words to respond with were already on her lips, but Simon kept talking, and the moment disappeared, one more time she couldn’t tell him down the drain of time.

Simon adjusted his glasses and came a bit closer to her, his steps slow and unsure.

“Just – back when I searched the ruins for your food, I didn’t think it would end like this. I thought either the crown would drive me mad forever or we wouldn’t make it. Here we are, and it just feels wrong for you to take care of me. I didn’t crawl through all that stuff back then to have you helping me out every day, did I?”

“Maybe not”, she said, “but I did.”

His body shook. She was already on her feet when he stabilised herself by holding onto a chair in the living room. A moment later they were as close as they’d ever been, and she tried to take his hand, his shoulder, anything.

“Stop, I’m fine”, he said.

“Maybe, but – I really want to help you. Let me. Even if… even if it turns really bad. Really, really bad. I’ll be there. Like you were for me. Please.”

Simon didn't say a thing, and his expression did not change. It still looked pained from whatever caused him to lose balance in the first place, still found the little folds of strength left inside him not to scare Marceline too much, still looked at her like he felt bad for her more than she did for him. He didn't have to watch himself disappear as much as she did. And it was starting. Slowly, but ever-so-slightly, it was starting. He didn't say a thing. Marceline nodded, hot tears forming behind her eyes, ready to spill.

 “I’ll see myself out.”

As she turned away, she felt a hand come to rest on her shoulder. She touched it back, feeling it squeeze the fabric of her shirt. In the present, she could feel its faint echo on her shirt, its long, thin fingers resting their warm embrace on her. When she turned around, nobody was there. Bonnie looked at her as if she’d just seen a ghost. Well, maybe she had.

The Simon who wasn’t there waited until she turned around to face him, her eyes red and ready to leak even more feelings into the world.

“Who’s gonna get the groceries when I’m tired if I don’t have you, after all?”, he said. He smiled.

“You dork. Is that all you’ve got to say? I might as well leave, like, come on, that’s just sad.”

“Marcy, I… if you want to watch this happen, then, alright. But, please, if you ever feel tired or annoyed or like I’m too much, I don’t want to be a burden to you or Bonnie, like I was with the crown, I…”

“Shut up.”

Her arms wrapped around him, crossing over themselves on his shoulder blades. He hugged her back, his hold feeling weak, but still full of life and warmth. They sat down on the couch and stayed there for a while, her enjoying Simon’s warmth, him looking carefully at her hair, wondering how she’d gotten it like this, whether It had hurt, how much it had mattered to her.

“Simon”, she whispered, “I love you too, you grumpy old man.”

He didn't say anything for a while, then looked at her, his eyes steady and sure. 

"Thank you."

Shermy wiped at his eyes.

“Oh, are you crying?”, Peppermint Butler asked. He quickly hid one of his eyes behind his hand. The last BMO had seen of it had looked red and wet, but he'd never tell.

“Am not!”, Shermy said. He sniffled a little.

“It’s alright”, Marceline said, taking the glasses off again, “it’s fine. I did, too. I think.”

“Did you stay?”, Beth asked.

Marceline nodded. Bonnie gave her arm a firm squeeze, warm and sweet.

“I’m sure he appreciated it in the end.”

“Yeah. We just sort of hugged it out, started watching some old movie and then… you know, it’s weird. We’d been through so much, but after I grew up, even after he turned back from the Ice King, we never did that again. And that night, it just kinda felt like back then, before everything.”

“What?”, Beth asked.

BMO looked around at the gathering before him. He’d never thought his little castle would harbour so many living things. Shermy was sitting on Beth’s lap, his head resting on her belly. Marceline sat on a stool in the middle, leaning forward to look at the glasses. Peppermint Butler and Bonnie were both watching her eagerly, the latter with an expression he couldn’t quite place – it was there and far away all at once. And then there was Simon. Or wasn’t there? He swore he could almost feel him somewhere, rummaging through his collection. But not, it must have been the wind.

Marceline looked at the glasses for a long moment. She tried to imagine the eyes behind them, but it was harder than she’d thought it would be. It was night outside now, the moon rising high somewhere behind a wall of clouds. Maybe it shined on what remained of the Ice Kingdom. Maybe.

“Simon and I… in the middle of Back to the Future, I reached for his hand. And we just sorta held hands, I guess.”

And while Huntress Wizard slept in her forest, while Sweet P. walked the planes and forest, while the Gum Ball Guardian kept whatever was left of the Candy Kingdom alive and a large Pup with one red jewel eye gave a speech at a dinner before a kingdom of others, Marceline quietly whispered to herself in BMO's castle of memories, a thought for nobody but the one who'd kept her company when she had been too weak to stand up.

“We held hands until the end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for taking another ride with me. I hope you're having a wonderful day wherever you are, and that the weather is good, and that the people you love love you back. 
> 
> This'll be the last story in this universe for a little while, and I'll be very happy if we meet again in the future. 
> 
> As always, I'd love to read all of your thoughts and impressions. You guys are the best.


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